Video Card Compatibility?
I'm planning on buying a GeForce GTX 470 or 480 but I'm not sure if it will work with my desktop. I'm not sure what specs to look for aside from my video card slot (which is PCI-e x16 btw) so can anyone help me out? My PC is rather old (somewhere around 3 years) and some computer geek told me that the video card might be to fast for my motherboard (power supply or something? I don't know)
Anyway here are the specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.5 GHz
5GB RAM (recently installed 3GB) 2048MB DDR2
and as I already mentioned my video card slot is PCI-e x16
If I'm missing anymore details please tell me
I need to know if any of the 2 video cards will work with my PC, and if they won't can you suggest a different card almost as good that WOULD work?
Comments
First, open up your case and look at the maximum wattsage listed on your power supply, you need at least 600 watt power supply for any decent card. If your Power supply came with the computer it will usually need to be replaced.
Once ensure the power supply is good enough. The GtX 470 and 480 will both work, however, they will not perform anywhere near its potential..
their will be some loss using pci-e x16 1.0 vs 2.0 (about 2% -5%)... not enough to notice
BUT your main problem is your Processor, it's very slow for modern gaming and will be a major bottleneck for gaming performance. A video card will only perform as fast as the CPU allows it. Your CPU will slow down both a GTX 470 and GTX 480 to slower than a GTX 460. So you would be wasting your money buying a GTX 470/480 (or even a GTX 460). On your hardware I wouldnt go higher than the Nvidia 9800 or 240 or 250. You wont get any better performance on your computer with a better card.
You need a new processor to use a decent video card.
Pointless
Any newer card would be wasted on your system
I don't know why people insist on using very high end video cards with old outdated computers